Title: Opportunities and internationalisation of PSFs - an exploration of similarities and differences!

Authors: Søren Henning Jensen; Flemming Poulfelt

Addresses: Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, 2000 Frederiksberg C, Denmark ' Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, 2000 Frederiksberg C, Denmark

Abstract: The article focuses on the relationship between internationalisation and opportunities of firms within the professional services industry. The key question explored is whether internationalisation of PSFs is a passive strategy driven by clients' internationalisation or if it is a deliberate search for opportunities that drives the internationalisation processes. This is being analysed by scrutinising the literature to check if this perspective can be understood and explained from an opportunity angle. The paper shows that there is no apparent pattern among the various PSF articles that relates to opportunities. Instead, it seems to be a very scattered landscape. However, the analysis reveals that there seems to be a focus on sub-industries or businesses rather than looking on PSF as a whole. In addition, the analysis indicates that opportunities are dealt with as an underlying issue closely related to the particular take on internationalisation for the individual article and therefore shows the same variation.

Keywords: opportunities; professional service firms; PSFs; internationalisation; literature review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2017.082631

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2017 Vol.9 No.1, pp.18 - 40

Received: 01 Nov 2014
Accepted: 21 Apr 2015
Published online: 04 Mar 2017 *

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